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April 13, 2010
A $400 million 'modest investment'
Michelle Obama plans to spend $400 million dollars a year on her Let's Move initiative's "ambitious goal" of eliminating "food deserts" in the U.S. -- making sure every low-income person in the country has the option of purchasing healthy food at a grocery story less than one mile from home. (See yesterday's article on the subject.) Whenever you hear the phrase "ambitious goal" it's not a surprise that the budget estimate is only seed money. After I posted the Food Desert article, an earlier quote from the First Lady turned up on a website called Ecorazzi:
With a modest initial investment of about $400 million a year, we're going to use that money to leverage hundreds of millions of more from private and nonprofit sectors to bring grocery stores and other food retailers to under-served communities all across this country.
This sentence uses the English language in interesting ways:
"Modest": in order to consider $400 million "modest," one has to be thoroughly corrupted by the trillions of dollars flowing through the White House.
"Initial" implies that this is only the beginning.
"Investment" = the Obama Administration's euphemism for wasteful government spending.
"We're going to use that money to..." = We're going to take that money from you and..
"Leverage" = apply the coercive power of the federal government.
Ecorazzi's conclusion? "Sounds like a good investment to us!"